Conventionally, for feeding recorded media in a form opposing a recording unit of an ink-jet type image recording apparatus or the like, there is known a paper feeding unit including a feed roller at a tip end of an arm body whose base end is pivotally supported on an apparatus casing in a manner enabling it to turn upward and downward. According to this paper feeding unit, due to an urging force of a spring that presses the arm body, the feed roller is pressed against the uppermost surface of paper stacked and accommodated in a paper feeding unit of a paper feeding cassette or the like whose upper face is open. By rotating the feed roller in this state, the ends of paper are butted against an inclined separating wall formed on an end on the downstream side of a feed direction of the paper feeding unit and only the uppermost paper is separated and fed toward the image recording unit (refer to JP-A-2005-247521).
On the other hand, as shown in the image recording apparatus described in JP-A-09-2673, a bottom plate is provided on the lower end of the apparatus casing, and a space above the bottom plate is formed into a cassette housing. Usually, the paper feeding cassette can be inserted into and extracted from this cassette housing substantially in the horizontal direction. In this configuration, due to use for a long period of time, dust and paper powder accumulate on the bottom plate.
However, in the case of the configuration in which the arm body is urged downward as in the case of JP-A-2005-247521 being applied to the configuration of JP-A-09-2673, when the paper feeding cassette is pulled out of the apparatus casing and the lower surface of the feed roller at the lower end of the arm body comes into contact with the bottom plate, dust and paper powder adhere to the lower surface of the feed roller. Thereafter, when the paper feeding cassette is inserted into the cassette housing again, the feed roller comes into contact with the uppermost surface of the recorded media stacked in the paper feeding cassette. If the feed roller rotates in this state, dust and paper powder adhere to and contaminate the surface of the recorded media, and if the recorded media are conveyed to the recording unit, the conveying path is contaminated and the quality of image recording on the recorded media is significantly deteriorated.